by Jim Nelson
“Cassandra tells me you’ve been sniffing around Leigh Blessing’s apartment,” Drake said out of the blue. He interrupted my protest. “She also tells me you’re working for Elgin Clift. Some kind of video or film has been deleted? Why’s it so important?”
“It’s important to Clift,” I said. “He thinks if it’s discovered missing, it’ll ruin the reputation of the Old Internet Preservation Commission.”
“Their reputation’s shot. He’s just worried about getting his funding cut off. No more cocktail hours and seven-course meals footed by the taxpayers.”
“As far as the video’s concerned, it’s an old art school film from 2010 or so.”
“What’s it about?”
I stared into my mug of whisky as I explained it. How many glasses of alcohol have I stared into over the course of my life recounting every detail of that damn film to myself. Detachment had caused enough misery in my life, and here I was giving an objective explanation of it to one of the most important men in the history of the Internet, a man I’d admired for forty years.
“An middle-aged homely man and his sweet young girlfriend share an apartment,” I began. “He’s verbally abusive toward her. He tells her she’s overweight and demands she cook him dinner and wash his clothes. It’s, ah, not a particularly rewarding relationship for her.”
“This is the film we’re talking about? The one that’s missing?”
“At the end of the film, after they’ve had sex, she says she’s pregnant. He tells her to get an abortion. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist. Fed up with him, she, ah…” I waved my hand before my groin. “She emasculates him with a kitchen knife.”
“Is it graphic?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Is the sex graphic?”
“It’s not a porno,” I said. “There’s a lot of skin. His and hers.”
“Is it political?”
“It was made in San Francisco. It couldn't be anything else.”
“Fair enough.”
“And that’s it. That’s the film.”
He sipped his whisky. “Sounds like a stupid film,” he muttered.
“It’s an amateur effort,” I said. “That’s also why it feels so raw. It had a freak show quality to it. A horror film that wanted to be French New Wave.”
"It used to be popular?"
"It was huge," I said. "The emasculation scene became a meme. Actually, several memes. The guy losing his manhood turned into a bit of a running joke for years on end."
“And people want to watch this film today?”
“I would think no one has watched it in decades,” I said. “It’s thirty years old. It’s an old-style two-dimensional film. It’s in black-and-white, for crissakes. No one watches those any more, what with hypernovels these days.”
“But I imagine you’ve learned over the past few days that some people are very, very interested in this film.”
George Drake seemed more well-informed than he let on. “Aside from Clift’s desire to protect his situation on Alcatraz Island, I’m not sure why.”
Drake laughed. “I thought you were the detective.”
“I’m not a detective. I’m in computer security.”
“This film,” he said, “who stars in it?”
It caught me sideways. “It only had two actors,” I said. “The older, ah, ugly man and a young blond actress. I’ve been looking into them, of course, as well as the film crew and director…”
“Don’t bother,” Drake said. “What’s important is, I know who one of the actors is. And knowing that kind of unlocks the puzzle.”
“How?” I asked cautiously. “Why do you know the actor?”
“Because I do,” he said with an innocent shrug.
Suddenly being out there alone on the sea with Drake and Max and his .38 felt like a trap. “What about him?” I asked.
“Her,” he said with a disarming tone of confidence. “I know who she is."
"The girlfriend?"
"A girl named Melody Purcell, right?”
Floored, jaw loose, I nodded. “That's right.”
“Purcell was her stage name,” Drake said. “You know her real name?’
“I do not. But I’d like to know.”
He shook his head and topped up his mug. “How could a detective not know this?”
“My research assistant is out of the office.”
“Faye Melody Purcetti,” Drake announced, adding an Italianate flourish. “Do you follow local politics?”
“Not especially.”
“Faye Purcetti is the maiden name of Faye Justin. Her husband is Samuel A. Justin.”
The Tetris blocks fell into place with a satisfying snugness. “Samuel Justin, the current mayor of San Francisco.”
“Who is now running for a Senate seat,” Drake said. “There’s talk in the air of a future run for President. Guess who his campaign chair is?” He allowed me a single beat to answer. “Faye Justin,” he said. “She heads her husband’s Senate election campaign. Now what do you think would happen if it came to light that she was involved in a porno-slash-ultra-feminist horror movie? One where she proudly castrates a man?”
I let that settle for a moment. “People aren’t so innocent," I said. "Years ago, this might have put an end to his political career. Today, though…”
“It’s a tight election. Two or three points of difference between the candidates, I’ve been told. The election is less than six weeks away. A surprise like this could shift enough votes. Besides, Sam Justin is eyeing the White House. Running for President means a national campaign. A castrating wife doesn’t play well in some parts of this country.”
Drake sensed my skepticism.
“Let’s flip the narrative,” he said. “Imagine you were in Sam Justin’s shoes. Someone comes to you and shows you this film. You could spend a mere five thousand dollars to make the film disappear. That’s cheap insurance.”
“Five thousand for what exactly?”
“To hire someone in your line of work, obviously.”
“You know for certain Justin hired someone?” I asked. “Or did your son take care of it?”
I sensed Max on the bridge listening in. Drake stiffened. He said, “Gannon has nothing to do with this—”
“Gannon is part of the Justin campaign,” I said. “Is Gannon good with computers?”
“No,” Drake said. “He’s good with people.”
“It’s the same thing, these days,” I said.
“He doesn’t know a thing about the Old Internet,” Drake said. “Not his forte. And for this theft to be pulled off, the thief would have to have a sound knowledge of the old ways.”
He lifted himself from his fishing chair and headed aft. Out here, my memex could not connect to the Nexternet—nothing could, with all the electromagnetic activity. The biotech in the memex itself was more-or-less unaffected, which isn’t saying much. My memex could tell me the time, record my thoughts, and nag me when I wanted to eat a sandwich. That was about it. Even then, it only had about a six-hour recording window before it would erase old stored memories to make way for the new. Hence, one purpose of the Nexternet was to transfer those old memories into permanent storage for later recall.
Drake conferred with Max on the bridge and descended to the cabin below deck. He returned with a bowl of mixed nuts. He offered it to me, which I refused at the insistence of a sensuous woman’s voice in my head. He scooped up a handful. He shook them from his fist and into his mouth.
“Max keeps trying to take us out to sea,” Drake explained while chewing. “The storm’s pushing us inland, so inland we go.”
“You have the missing data brick, don’t you,” I said.
“Me? God no.”
“You sure seem to know a lot about the missing film.”
“You’ve met my son Gannon?”
“I’ve had the pleasure.”
“He told his mother about the film, this Detachment you’re so concerned with
. Gannon told his mother, Cassandra told Max, Max told me. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s family gossip.”
“It occurs to me Gannon could’ve have asked you to delete the film from the Old Internet. You built the Internet's storehouse for over forty years. You would know its ins-and-outs better than anyone. You’re its architect.”
“You could certainly accuse me of that,” Drake said. “You’d be wrong, though. I have nothing to do with the Old Internet these days. When Clift stole it from me, I washed my hands of the project.”
“Leigh worked out at Alcatraz,” I said.
I sensed Max listening even more intently now, hands on the wheel but attention squarely on us on the fore deck.
“Quit it,” Drake said with a pitying smile. “You’re starting to sound desperate, accusing a pretty young thing like Leigh.”
“You installed Leigh Blessing on Alcatraz,” I said. “To spy on Clift and his cronies.”
Drake chilled one degree Fahrenheit. “That’s true. It was my idea. I mean, it was my idea to get someone on the island. I’ve never met Leigh. I told Cassandra my idea and she put it all together. I’m not throwing her under the bus wheels—that’s just how it played out. We needed a pair of eyes and ears on the island to monitor Clift and his…ambitions.”
“You said you washed your hands of the Old Internet—”
“I overstated my position,” Drake said. “I spent forty goddamn years squirreling away our planet’s collective memory. You think I would really just walk away and not worry about its new caretaker? We needed someone out there every day, living on the island if at all possible. An eager young intern seemed the best way to accomplish it. Cassandra arranged for her to win the Chancellor Prize. It gave our maneuverings an air of the genuine.”
“Clift’s no dummy. He must have smelled a setup immediately.”
“Of course! It’s like the Cold War between Clift and me. He knows my spies, I know his agents, and we both pretend we’re oblivious."
"Is there a spy in your midst?"
"You're here, aren't you?" he snapped.
I studied my drink for a moment. The ozone was thick in the air and made the sea smell like a hospital ward. It gave the whisky a soapy flavor.
“Clift's paying me to recover the data and prevent further breaches," I said. "And my gut says if you don’t have the data brick, then you know who does.”
Drake scooped more nuts. He chewed them up two and three at a time while staring at me.
“The game we’re playing here is chess, Mr. Naroy,” he said, mouth crunching. “Clift has his pieces on the board and I have my pieces on the board. Unfortunately, Clift is holding more material than me. But if you know anything about chess, you know it’s not about the number of pieces you control, it’s about each piece’s position and relative strength. A single queen is worth more than six pawns. And I have a queen on my side of the board.”
“Your ex-wife is a unique woman.”
“She’s the brightest mind I’ve ever worked with,” he said. “And her enthusiasm for the Internet was unmatched. She knew what others were slow to see: The Internet was going to be the great equalizer in the world. Rightly or wrongly, it would give everyone a voice. The Internet didn’t just level playing fields. It flattened the planet.”
His face sagged. Some unwelcome memory intruded on his thoughts. It aged him ten years in a moment.
“That’s why she was so excited about the Nexternet,” he said dourly. “She was one of its earliest boosters. You know, she helped develop the basics of the Nexternet’s neurotransmission protocols.”
“I did know that. I know she also worked on the early memex prototypes.”
“Not the biotech, but the interface between the Nexternet and the memex’s processor.” He pushed the meat of his thumb into one socket and wiped it dry. "You know the price she paid for that, right?"
I shook my head. "I heard it was dangerous work is all."
“She was testing the technology while she was developing it. Her prototype memex…it clamped up.” He thumbed a tear from his other eye. “This was before they realized neurotransmission of the human conscience required a release gate. Her early versions of the protocols were too efficient about transmitting raw emotions, like guilt and lust and rage and desperation."
"She told me she'd recorded her research assistant listening to Kind of Blue."
"And Cassandra thought she would play back those memories and hear Kind of Blue through her assistant's ears," Drake said. "She did, of course, but the music stirred up thousands of raw emotional memories. Memories we all have but keep clamped up inside us. Those memories are like permanent houseguests. We become so used to them, we forget just how intrusive they are. The flood of her assistant's primal inner emotions sent Cassandra's memex into a downward recursion. The memex connectors clamped around her spinal cord. They had to surgically remove it from her.”
“She’s lucky she’s alive.”
“Took away her vision.” He sniffled and wiped his nose. “Gannon was twelve. Would’ve destroyed him to lose his mother like that. But she pulled through. Tough goddamn woman is what she is. She attended his junior high graduation from a hospital gurney. No joke, she hired an ambulance to take her to his graduation. She paid for a nurse and had all the medical equipment she was connected to transported with her. The hospital refused, of course, but she set her foot down and paid off the right people and they relented.”
He made a wet, wistful laugh. “With all the equipment she was hooked up to, the only electrical outlets she could use were on the stage of the school assembly. You know, for the lighting for school plays. She lay on the gurney with an IV in her arm and medical equipment monitoring her brain functions while the kids received their diplomas twenty feet away. It was junior high, for crissakes, not even a real diploma. That’s where Gannon got his strength and resilience from. From his mother.” He added softly, “Not from me, that’s for sure.”
“You don’t think so?”
“When Cassandra and I divorced, I agreed to stay away. Oh, I could’ve pushed back, I could’ve filed for partial custody, but I always respected Cassandra and her decisions, and she wanted me out of Gannon's life. So I kept away.”
“When’s the last time you talked to Gannon?”
“It was…eight years ago,” Drake said as though doing the arithmetic in his head. “When Cassandra went under the knife, I took care of Gannon. After she recovered—when she regained the ability to talk—one of the first things she said to me was ‘Thank you for watching Gannon.’ The way she said it, I knew she was telling me my duty was finished and I was to leave. So I left. And since then, Gannon has wanted as little to do with me as possible. We've spoken maybe three times since she recovered.”
He shook his head slightly, a man's quiet appreciation for a woman who has no need of him, an involuntary response to memories rising from the earth and shaking off the dirt and debris.
“She raised Gannon right. He’s driven, just like her. He’s going to take Samuel Justin all the way to the White House, you watch out. Gannon is everything a man should be.”
"Do you still take care of him?"
"No," he said distantly. "But when I'm gone from this life, I've taken steps to ensure he's taken care of. Between my estate and his mother's, Max will want for nothing."
Max had descended from the bridge to adjust the sail and tighten lines. Drake took Max by the fingers and shook his arm.
“This guy, though, this guy. See, my old pilot was stealing from me. I got rid of him, finally, when we were fishing off the Channel Islands. Max worked a fishing charter down there. Lived his whole life on the water. Hired him on the spot." He gripped Max's arm like testing a rope for strength. "Today, Max is more than my pilot. Max here is my second chance. He’s family. Isn’t that right?”
Max made a grin and grasped Drake on the shoulder. He climbed the ladder to his post atop the bridge.
Drake coughed and straightened up in hi
s chair. “Listen. You came here wanting to talk about missing films and stolen data bricks. I want to suggest to you a different approach. I want to suggest an alternate way of viewing the situation.”
“If you know I’m working for Elgin Clift, then you know I have to honor the business agreement I’ve entered into.”
“Hear me out,” Drake said. “I’m not talking breach of contract. I’m not even talking about hiring you away from him, although Lord knows the thought crossed my mind. You know. Send him back a taste of his own medicine.”
“I’m not one of your chess pawns,” I said.
“No, you’re a knight,” he said. “You can jump over the other pieces. You’re not easily blocked. You see, everyone else in this little game has something at stake. That holds us down. Every move we make is calculated. You’re not so constrained.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said.
“You see a stolen data brick. I see an attempt to control history. How do you know Clift didn’t steal the data himself?”
“It crossed my mind. It seems unlikely.”
“I agree,” Drake said. “But he’s awfully eager to get it back. I mean, this is a man who once excised hundreds of mention of me from the Old Internet, all to ensure no one knew about my connection to the history he controlled. What is Clift capable of now? Do you understand the ego of this man?”
“I wised up to it within ten minutes of meeting him.”
“I think Clift is motivated against Samuel Justin. I think he’s motivated against my son. If he tanks Justin, he tanks my son’s career ambitions. And he hurts me once more.” Drake shook his hands in the air. “If Clift ‘disappeared’ the movie and put up a so-called fight to get it back, he’s off the hook for jabbing me in the eye one more time.”
I chewed on it for a moment. “It sounds too indirect,” I said. “Clift doesn’t seem so…oblique. And I don’t think he’d risk embarrassment just to get to you.”
“I’m telling you, this is a game of chess. You don’t attack the king straight away. First you take down his supporting pieces. And Gannon is my bishop.”
I suppose it’s not terribly insightful to note that a reclusive billionaire residing in an aluminum house on a private island is living a fantasy. The real fantasy is that Drake saw his estranged son—a man he’d not spoken with in over eight years—as his bishop on the chess board.